Applications of fluorescence spectroscopy to molecular cytogenetics

Perturbations to the intersystem crossing of proflavin upon binding to DNA and poly d(A-IU) from triplet-delayed emission spectroscopy

The steady-state prompt fluorescence, phosphorescence and delayed fluorescence spectra and triplet lifetimes of free proflavin and proflavin bound to native DNA and alternating poly d(A-IU) were obtained as a function of temperature in a buffer-glycerol solvent. The intensity of the proflavin E-type delayed fluorescence (DF) relative to both the phosphorescence (Ph) and the prompt fluorescence (F) was observed to increase with temperature, and plots of both ln (DF/Ph) and ln (DF/(F.tau T] as a function of 1/T were linear over a wide range of temperatures. Although the activation energies for the thermal repopulation of the proflavin excited singlet state from the triplet obtained from the slopes of these plots were essentially unchanged on binding, perturbations to the S1----T1 intersystem crossing rate constants extracted from the intercepts at infinite temperature were observed. The marked enhancement of the intersystem crossing that occurs with binding to the iodinated polynucleotide reflects an external heavy atom perturbation upon the intercalated dye which also induces a shortening in the triplet lifetime. With proflavin bound to DNA an enhancement to the S1----T1 intersystem crossing, though lesser in magnitude than for poly d(A-IU), is observed but with no change to the triplet lifetime. The well-studied fluorescence quenching of DNA-bound proflavin is a result of this increase in the intersystem crossing. It is proposed that these non-heavy atom enhancements in the intersystem crossing are due to distortions of the molecular plane of the bound proflavin molecule. In total these analyses provide a complete description of the excited state processes of the proflavin molecule and their variations with temperature.

Isolation of DNA sequences on human chromosome 21 by application of a recombination-based assay to DNA from flow-sorted chromosomes

By merging two efficient technologies, bivariate flow sorting of human metaphase chromosomes and a recombination-based assay for sequence complexity, we isolated 28 cloned DNA segments homologous to loci on human chromosome 21. Subregional mapping of these DNA segments with a somatic cell hybrid panel showed that 26 of the 28 cloned DNA sequences are distributed along the long arm of chromosome 21, while the other 2 hybridize with sequences on the short arm of both chromosome 21 and other chromosomes. This new collection of probes homologous to chromosome 21 should facilitate molecular analyses of trisomy 21 by providing DNA probes for the linkage map of chromosome 21, for studies of nondisjunction, for chromosome walking in clinically relevant subregions of chromosome 21, and for the isolation of genes on chromosome 21 following the screening of cDNA libraries.